Goya Coconut Soda

Josh do you remember the time I had that coconut drink with all the moist chunks in it? What about do you remember the time I had the coconut drink that spit in my mouth? FORGET ALL THOSE TIMES because I have a new coconut beverage.

What is it about coconut, I wonder. It keeps luring me back with the promise of virgin tropics and a life free from worry. In my quiet moments, I don’t actually consider myself to be a coconut person. I don’t like the sun or the beach. I don’t care for the outdoors, or for “weather”. I don’t find myself in the produce section thinking Hey, I should eat a coconut. I even remember the one time I had actual coconut– it was 10 years ago. Some friends thought it would be fun to bring one to a picnic, but neglected to bring any kind of useful tools to open it with. Someone spent 10 minutes smashing it furiously against the corner of a picnic table until it burst into a million pieces, all of which landed on the dirty ground. And after all that, it wasn’t even good! Did you know that actual coconut tastes nothing like the shredded stuff you find in candy bars and cakes? I know! I think that was the afternoon I perfected my half-hearted smile, and resolved to seek out new friends. And you know how that turned out for me.

So I have a complicated relationship with coconut. Because still, the idea of coconut manages to inhabit. Luckily I am not a dude who dwells unnecessarily on the past, letting it color his modern, waking life, because otherwise I would not have allowed this beverage to seduce me.

It tasted EXACTLY like I wanted. It was lovely and coconuty, sweet and bubbly. I could chill with this on a long evening, regaling others with tales of youthful folly and friends I no longer care to associate with. This beverage is sitting in the air-conditioned lobby in the hotel by the beach, rather than sitting on the sand, under the sun, sweating and dying.

For some people, smashing a coconut against the corner of a picnic table, then crouching in the grass while brushing the dirt and bugs off the exploded shards, is a fine way to spend an afternoon. As for me, I like someone wearing white cotton gloves to pour a beverage such as this into a coconut and then hand it to me, before trotting off to turn the a/c up just a titch. I guess that’s why you and I are such good friends. Cheers.

Jarritos Tamarindo

Josh. Like you, I have been searching long and lean for a good tamarind soda. A lot of the tamarind sodas on the market today, they skimp on the tamarind flavor. I’ll just say it. The global tamarind beverage syndicate doesn’t want to hear it, but I will say it. The products they deliver are at best tamarind-esque. My saying this could get us shut down, I don’t know. But the people’s voice will be heard, and the people’s voice is saying Seriously is there even one good tamarind soda, having maximum tamarind flavor, available at a price that is not excessively tariff’d?

OK fine I have no clue what a tamarind is or what it tastes like. But who cares. You think I would ever let the facts stop me from achieving pure enjoyment? I was expecting this to taste like, what, Rutabaga Cola or something, but it was not at all like that. It tasted like sweet tea soda and I liked it.

Mexican Coke Vs. Passover Coke

Two varieties of Coca-Cola. Both sweetened with cane sugar, rather than high fructose corn syrup. On the surface–could they be more similar? And yet if we look a bit more closely, we find they have vastly disparate pedigrees. Which is the ultimate? K4T asks the impossible questions, in our continual pursuit of the incontrovertible truth.

The origins of Mexican Coke are shrouded in legend and mystery. Who even knows how it gained ingress to this country? Did it save the nickels it earned, street-fighting on poorly-lit corners, saving up to purchase a crudely-drawn map from a coyote with an eye patch? See the glass bottle’s silhouette, as it races across the desert at night. And even later, having established itself at the local groceria, its presence is only truly known to those with knowledge of the secret password. An almost imperceptible nod from the owner, and you are taken through the false door behind the telenovela rentals, back to the Mexican Coke display room. Its name is whispered in the dreams of children and old men. Mexican Coke is everywhere and nowhere, inspiring the hopes and spirits of anyone who ever dared to dream.

And what of Passover Coke? He spends 50 weeks out of the year wearing sunglasses and a loose towel, laying beneath a sunlamp in a temperature-controlled warehouse. “It is time to make your appearance,” its manager says. Passover Coke rolls its eyes. “Again? Explain to me why I keep you on the payroll, if I’m always having to glad-hand the proletariat.” The manager shrugs and look sheepish. “Forget it,” Passover Coke says with disgust. “Forget you. Just bring the limo around.” It is a brief, air-conditioned trip to the chartered jet. Passover Coke will be flown out to the ritzy supermarket, where it will swoop down on a parachute to alight upon the dais, a false smile and a half-hearted wave to the adoring crowd. Unworthy cretins, Passover Coke thinks, vowing a hard punch to the eye for the first person who tries to touch it. Next year we’re farming this gig out to RC Cola.

Based on these facts, and others too innumerable to mention, Mexican Coke is certainly the more worthy beverage.

Snapple Mandarin Tangerine Red Tea

Man. This drink required a pantload of research. Maybe it’s just me being rusty at this beview shizz, but I felt like I was starting from nothing. What is red tea, and how does it stack up against black, green, white, regular and Lipton? Was I supposed to already know what rooibos is? And is this a real thing that’s been around for hundreds of years, somehow only just landing on our marketplace shores, or is it more of a marketing concept, created to re-energize brand-sick consumers? And then, what is a “mandarin tangerine”? Is that like an actual thing, or are they saying it’s a combination of tangerine and mandarin orange flavors. Did they mix the flavors together in a lab, or are we talking horticulture and hybridization here? But how come neither one is listed in the actual ingredients? And for that reason, how come this drink isn’t listed on Snapple’s website?

So I was basically Wikipediaing the shit out of this one. And it all kind of ended up being moot because the first sip was awful, and it went downhill from there. Not at all tea-licious, just flat– that sort of unemotional tastelessness that is currently in vogue in the tea and fruit water sectors. I remember when a Snapple had mad flava. Who’s with me.

It’s unfortunate, because it smells really good. Sort of fruity and herbal-y. Light and gentle. Summer breeze and a carefree smile. If I met a girl whose hair smelled like this I would want to date her. But then if I kissed her and she tasted like this, well, the less said, but I would certainly remove her from my Top 8 on Myspace, I can tell you that.

AND THEN I realized the drink was caffeine-free, which was a bummer because the whole reason I drank it in the first place was because stapling and filing had me down, and I was hoping for a little jolt to get me through the afternoon. So I went and had some of the office coffee instead. I put a little sugar in and it was OK.

I guess my takeaway is: drink first, research later. One to grow on, or whatever.

The First K4T User-Generated Content Contest

Dear Everyone–

I am back safe and sound, thanks very much to all the alert K4T readers who figured out the note and emailed J&G info about my whereabouts. Long story short, Josh’s maid, Thalia, who is extremely hot (no offense, J) also turned out to be a spy for the Pro-Cochineal Militia. What’s more, she broke my heart, just when I was finally learning how to love. Anyways, Gonzalo picked me up yesterday afternoon so I’m back now and just sort of getting my bearings here. I need to get Josh to rehab, and I guess Gonzalo hasn’t filed one god damn thing in about six months. While we find our feet, how about a nice little contest!

Please write in and tell us, in 200 words or less, about the best new beverage you enjoyed while K4T was on hiatus. The most entertaining entry will appear here on the site. Yes, you read that correctly: something you wrote might appear on a website. OK to sweeten the deal we will also send the winner a bona fide K4T Prize Pack of Random Beverages. U.S.A only, unfortunately, since I don’t know much about sending boxes of suspicious beverages overseas in our post 9/11 world, and funds are a bit tight until this season’s kickbacks from [Global Beverage Corporation] start rolling in.

Please send your missives in no later than Monday, April 30th, and either I or Gonzalo (if he still has a job) will read them.

Thank you for helping us:

  1. put content on the site
  2. stall

Regular beviews return next week.

Minute Maid Blends: Orange Passion

OK I hope Dean Allen has been paying the electric bill because I am just writing this directly into the machine. From my fingertips to your eyes.

I am a person who eats breakfast with such frequency that it is often necessary to push other meals aside in order to make room for additional breakfasts. Pancakes and eggs are a ’round the clock affair at my place. There is nothing quite so pleasant as Morningstar Farms bacon in the broiler as the sun fades from view. Let’s say we ever decide to do another of our “sleepovers”: if you slept in really late you might not even be sure what time it was, based on the meal I put in front of you as you sat in your pajamas, hair all mussed, rubbing the sleepy seeds out of your eyes. I mean think about it. Anyways.

I think we can all agree that orange juice is pretty much the go-to bev for breakfast meals, at least when one KEEPS FORGETTING TO BUY THE FUCKING CELERY for the Bloody Marys. But the problem is that most orange juice completely sucks, unless you’re going to find a bunch of oranges and squeeze that shit fresh, which is too much clean-up for a busy fellow like me. And frankly I don’t have the forearm strength for that type of endeavor anyway. So I make do with the various cardboard-carton’d O.J.’s I pick up at the grocery, avoiding anything with pulp because it feels like eating fingernails, and I just get through it, because what else am I going to do? In a world where all the options suck, we learn to accept what we’re given and derive pleasure where we may, like a homeless man who writes very good poems.

And that’s where my little diatribe would end were it not for my recent discovery of Minute Maid Blends: Orange Passion. It’s the breakfast juice I always wanted. Gone, the stale sourness of supermarket orange juice, replaced by sweetly bewitching hints of passionfruit and guava. I am seriously so taken with this juice that I can often be found standing by the refrigerator, drinking it right from the carton. As though I literally had no time to procure a glass. I can’t remember the last time I felt like this. I’m giddy, re-energized, excited once again about life as it pertains to orange juice. I feel like a little kid again. Footy pajamas and Scooby’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics and the Vanessa Williams issue of Penthouse. I had a really complicated childhood.

Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia Milkshake

Dear Josh:

I remember the time you had sex with Sean Connery.

You gave yourself utterly to his ecstasy, so overwhelmed were you by his brute beauty. All through that long night–that night you prayed would never end–his passion was relentless, merciless. He reduced your soul to embers, your heart stirring in awe of the mastery, the achieve of this man, this chevalier.

And the next morning–the harsh morning light streaming in through the hotel windows–you woke to find him gone. On the dresser, A fifty-dollar bill wrapped around the stem of a single red rose. And you thought to yourself: Ummm did I seriously do all those things with award-winning star Sean Connery and if so what the hell was I thinking? Because no way was he going to be interested in a relationship. Honestly, I know we don’t talk about it much, but I think you never got over him. You were certainly never the same after that encounter. And yet the memories. The wonderful, haunting memories.

All my feelings about Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia Milkshake are summed up in that 100% true anecdote.

Such a wondrous experience, leaving such potent regret in its wake. It’s like drinking cool, melty ice cream. The only thing that could make it more enjoyable would be if there were spoilers for the next Harry Potter book printed on the label, to read while pausing between sips. Josh I am embarassed to tell you that after I was done, I put the cap back on and rested the bottle upside down so that I might tease from it one last sip. I’ve never done that before, and now that I have I feel I’ve turned a corner forever, my life changed irrevocably by hedonistic desire.

And then I seriously did not get up from my chair for 20 minutes after drinking it. It was like I was pinned to the chair, a pillowcase full of Puffskeins in my stomach, slowly dragging themselves down the length of my colon. The afternoon was endless, merciless.

This time I am swearing off the dairy for good, let this entry be my swan song. No more of that for this guy. Well maybe one exception: I know it’s very unlikely that when I die one day, decades from now, I will die from drowning. As you know I hate to swim and look terrible in a speedo. And it’s even more unlikely that if I do drown, that I’ll get to choose beforehand what I drown in. I could see this happening only if my life was more like a young James Bond’s. But just in case it does come to pass that I will drown and get to choose the solution, I want to drown in Cherry Garcia Milkshake. For what could be a more lovely and noble and dangerous. I ask you.

Scary Halloween Review: Tab Energy Drink

You wake up in a dingy basement, your hands shackled and chained to the very gross floor. There’s a dead body next to you, holding a tape player. The recorded message tells you the key to the chains has been implanted in your tongue. You notice a razor blade affixed to the wall nearby, right at the level of your mouth. With no small amount of weeping and wailing, you start licking.

Spykes

Alert beverage-consumer Maura alerts us to Spykes, describing them thusly:

Served in nail polish-sized bottles. Flavors are spicy lime, hot melons (?!), spicy mango, and hot chocolate. It’s fortified with caffeine and guarana. What confused me the most was the instruction to “drink them as a shot or pour them in to [sic] your beer.”

We do love the hot melons. Thanks Maura!